


when we have shuffled off this mortal coil

by thatdamnuchiha



Series: In the Company of Elves [11]
Category: Naruto, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, BAMF Dai-nana-han | Team 7 (Naruto), BAMF Haruno Sakura, BAMF Hatake Kakashi, BAMF Uchiha Sasuke, BAMF Uzumaki Naruto, Dai-nana-han | Team 7 (Naruto)-centric, Dimension Travel, Elfling Kakashi, Elfling Naruto, Elfling Sakura, Elfling Sasuke, Feral Dai-nana-han | Team 7 (Naruto), Gen, Haruno Sakura-centric, Hatake Kakashi-centric, Isolation, Reincarnation, Rivendell | Imladris, Rules of Chakra Manipulation, Slow To Update, Strong Haruno Sakura, There Might Be Slivers Of..., This is that serious version of 'Finding Family', Uchiha Sasuke-centric, Uzumaki Naruto-centric, You Guessed it., hi canon bye canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:21:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 20,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25825039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatdamnuchiha/pseuds/thatdamnuchiha
Summary: It was written in their souls aeons ago. They would be together, and nothing would ever change that. Not even death itself.
Relationships: Haruno Sakura & Hatake Kakashi & Uchiha Sasuke & Uzumaki Naruto
Series: In the Company of Elves [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1430875
Comments: 52
Kudos: 457
Collections: Down The Rabbit Hole





	1. the threads that bind our twisted souls

**Author's Note:**

> You know that serious version of 'A Long Way From Home' and 'Finding Family' that I promised - because those two were basically just a mix of fluff, crack, and angst... Yeah?
> 
> Well, this is it.
> 
> I make no promises on keeping everything canon, because there will be some alterations - because you know that still lake called canon? Imma drop some rocks in. Four of them to be precise. I love Tolkien's lore, but this is a crossover, ergo I don't feel absolutely terrible for playing fast and loose with canon (which is really hard to do when it comes to the world of Tolkien's creation). Anyway, you asked for a serious version of bby!elf Team Seven, so I'm gonna give you some feral bby!elf Team Seven... with actual plot this time.

She didn’t understand how she knew it – it was more intuition than anything. She didn’t need to be told that their fates were interwoven. It was something written in her soul. Something written in all of their souls.

She could feel it, when Kakashi took the kunai to his chest, when Sasuke faded from exhaustion, when Naruto stopped breathing. They had gone on ahead. She knew that. She didn’t need to be told. But she also knew they were waiting for her there, before they reached their next destination. They were bound together as they had been for so very long.

Their souls were ancient. It was a fact, even if she could only recall the memories from her life as Sakura. For she had been born of water and earth, just as Kakashi had been born of lightning and storm, Naruto of wind and sea salt, and Sasuke of fire and ash. Different, but always with one thing in common between them. They had all been shinobi that time around, a different breed to ordinary civilians.

So when she burnt, she vaguely knew what was coming. Her skin was crumbling and flaking, cracks forming up her torso from the plain ashen grey rod embedded in her stomach. She was dying, and her family was waiting for her. She was dying, and she was going to move on. _Again._

A smile cracked at her bleeding lips even as they turned to ash, body collapsing inwards as the process sped up and she fell to pieces. She was free from her constraints then, once more, and she greeted the three other presences she soon found glued to her side.

There was barely a moment to revel in the silence and contentment though, and Sakura felt the tug on their tethered souls, pulling them forwards – away from that place of healing and rest. Away from the memories and consequences of all the actions of their last life.

But that strange, intangible bond between them and their last life didn’t snap for reasons unbeknownst to Sakura. It remained, as did their memories of their last life.

Even as the hammer struck down, and they were forged anew.


	2. welcome to the fire, i’m the one who lit the night up

She didn’t come to with a gasp, or anything like that. Instead, she woke up, as one did from a dream. Only, unlike a dream, the scenery was completely different to the last she had seen before slipping into that blissful state of unconsciousness. She opened her eyes to find herself alone in a place unfamiliar to her. The walls were a dark grey, hard under her hands as she pressed them against the rocky surface. Light was scarce, barely slipping through a tiny crack of the rotting wooden door before her.

Cautious, she reached out, marvelling at how small her hand was. It wasn’t the same one as before – when she had been Haruno Sakura. Instead it was petite. Delicate. Unmarred by the scars and callouses which came with being a shinobi. Her hand landed upon the scarred wood, body freezing in the next second as the warning slammed into her with the force of a runaway train.

Her feet, bare like the rest of her, stumbled back on instinct – because whatever was out there wasn’t friendly. Her chakra curled in her gut, and she pulled it back, kneading it into a tiny ball. _It had come back after their voyage, and she was oh so grateful for that._ She still pulled her precious chakra away from the malice and hatred which raged against the pure light of her chakra. _Like starlight._ But her starlight chakra wouldn’t save her then. Not when she was the size of a child, with soft muscle and pitifully lacking stamina. She needed to get away. Needed to escape. So she turned, then, to the rest of the tiny room she had woken up inside.

It took barely a moment to gather her bearings in the unsettling room she had woken inside. _So close to a demon – for what else could be the creature lurking close by?_ She remembered the Kyuubi. Kurama was his name. His rage had been equal, if not slightly lesser, to the being which lingered nearby. But Kurama’s rage had been different, his anger somehow warmer with a tinge of familiarity to it. His rage could be quelled. _This, on the other hand…_

The demon there was pure evil and malice wrapped up in fiery chakra, and Sakura did not want to be anywhere near it. Her feet were near silent as she hurried towards the only other exit to the empty room. Small as she was, she slipped through it with ease, heart pounding in her chest as she ran and kept on running.

Smooth rock and tunnel met her, followed closely by stairs. Lots and lots of stairs. She ran upwards, just as instinct and nature called to her. Upwards was safer, for the demon lingered behind in the depths, rage and malice pulsating through the air. It was so still there. It didn’t lunge or chase after her with intent to kill, as so many other enemies would have. Instead it remained behind her, and Sakura hurried out into the halls, sprinting through them without any other thought than to _get away._

Demons were scary. Even when fighting for their side, Kurama, the Kyuubi, had been a force of destruction. The fox had been so great, and oh so terrible. She didn’t want to be anywhere near a being like that, especially not when there was no semblance of an alliance between them. It wasn’t sealed, even as stagnant as it appeared to be, and that thought only made her legs pump that much faster, short as they were.

Her chakra was of no help there. It slipped through her clumsy grasp like water, not wanting to be constricted. _Bound._ The thought of that made her brow wrinkle, even as she continued to run upwards. Up was safer than down. Up was where the surface had to be. So up she went, running through sloped, neat corridors hewn through rock. They were too smooth to have been carved by nature itself. Which meant she was near civilisation. Some form of civilisation, anyway. One which was quite possibly abandoned, if the snarling rage-hate-destroy chakra source well behind and beneath her was any indicator.

That creature could never have created the tunnels, sloping and as beautiful as they were. The demon wasn’t capable of creation. Sakura had no idea how she knew that so – it was intuition, or common sense at the least. Swallowing thickly, she continued making her way upwards for what felt like hours upon hours, barely paying attention to the route, nor the shadows on the path which she trod.

She could see the pale, eggshell white of bone, and the discarded suits of armour. Black arrows stuck from some of the piles, the stench of dried blood and rot infesting her mouth with every breath she took. It was rancid, and it was why Sakura was desperate to go up. She wanted to find fresher air.

But it was no exit which awaited her.

Instead she stumbled upon a food supply down one of the smaller, less noticeable paths, and what she presumed to be a garden of sorts, given she was unfamiliar with many of the plants there. Light shone in from above. Skylights of some description, but they were too high up, and too small for her to break through, even with her new, tiny body. Not that she would want to. The light was pretty, and in the darkness, the skylights shone like stars.

Sakura wasn’t entirely sure why she found herself so transfixed by that thought.

But it was there she found her refuge in the place made of hewn rock and stone far too smooth to be natural. There were two entryways, both of them easily guardable and already somewhat blocked off by ruined remnants of doors – not that they needed to be. Down the one she hadn’t tred to reach that place of solace and sanctuary, Sakura could feel a dampness in the air, and if she squinted she was just about able to make out the glint of pale light glancing off the water’s surface.

Mentally she checked off the box for finding a supply of water. _It smelt fresh – not stagnant, as she would have expected._ But gaining access to the water supply was another matter entirely. Large sections of the floor had fallen out, leading to caverns below, which meant the only way it would be accessible was by climbing along the walls or the ceiling – whichever took her fancy.

Her starlight chakra was in its infancy still, and Sakura had yet to try properly manipulating it as such. Something in it had changed, or so her intuition told her, but she could figure that out later, Sakura decided. Running around the long halls, navigating up the broken stairway, climbing the walls manually to reach her decided new home. All of that had exhausted her, and now, safe thanks to the difficulty of accessing her newly claimed garden, sleep was pulling at her eyelids. She wanted to rest. To sleep.

And sleep she did.

* * *

Mornings were dedicated to working with her chakra. The rules of the game had changed, and Sakura had to adapt as such. The very air around her had shifted, nature chakra no longer the same, if it were present at all. She wasn’t Naruto, and she daren’t try to mess around with that kind of energy. There was no burning desire to off herself by turning her body into stone. She hadn’t even found the rest of her quartet, and she didn’t wish to be stuck waiting for them in the in-between. The stage between them and their next incarnation. It only made sense to call it the _in-between_ rather than anything else.

Besides, her latest incarnation was the strangest, because she remembered the previous one. There was a niggling feeling in the back of her mind which told her nothing of the sort had happened before. Sakura knew to trust those sorts of instincts. They were correct, more often than not. Though in reality, Sakura couldn’t think of a time when they had been wrong.

Still, being in that quiet, stone place, alone, and with only her mind for company, Sakura found herself thinking. She was doing so much thinking over her new situation. She wasn’t freaking out, nor wondering _why_ it had happened. It just something that did. They were tied together, as they had be throughout many different reincarnations. This time was no different, aside from the fact she retained memories from before. _From when she had been born Haruno Sakura._ She supposed it was a good thing – otherwise she doubted she would have been able to survive with no outside guidance.

She probably wouldn’t have moved away from the demon as silently and quickly as she had if she hadn’t had her past memories. Not to mention she was more of a toddler than a baby. She could move, pitifully slowly compared to previously, but at least she wasn’t forced to crawl. It was suspicious – that she hadn’t woken in the body of a baby, created naturally without any outside interference. And it meant something had likely interfered. A higher power. One which had never interfered before. _Perhaps a different one to that which bound their souls and made them traverse worlds together._ Her eyes narrowed then at the thought, and she hugged her knees to her chest, shivering ever so slightly.

A sigh escaped her then – one of the few noises she had actually made in that place. There was something about the place which made her not want to make any sound. An underlying sense of _danger_ and _fear._ It made her uneasy, and that much more desperate to find weapons of sorts, but that meant venturing out from the safety of her new home.

Sakura wasn’t ready to do just that yet. It wasn’t healthy, and she worried over developing a crippling fear of leaving the safety of that garden and the water supply close by. She felt uneasy simply by sleeping. So sticking close by it was and figuring out the new rules which governed chakra usage. Mental health hadn’t been a great area of interest within Konoha, but the bits and pieces she knew would come in handy. _Because she was alone and isolated._ At least she would be until she found the others.

They would be close by or based nearby at the very least. It was why they had all been born in Konoha rather than being spread across the villages. They clustered together, the links between their very souls not allowing them to be born or incarnated too far apart. So she knew they were close by, but the place of grey stone and death was very large. The number of offshoot tunnels she had passed on her way up to her current home had been almost incomprehensible.

It had been a civilisation once, that she could figure out for herself, but as to whether anything lived there still… Sakura felt her thoughts stray back to the demon lurking deep below, and she swallowed then. Her legs ached still from the run up to her new place of safety, which made her note that she really ought to start work on building up her strength. She had a suspicion her enhanced strength would still be available to her, but Sakura didn’t particularly want to take any chances. Not with the underlying sense of danger which haunted the very halls themselves.

Whatever had guided her feet up to her new home, because she had no doubts she wouldn’t have stumbled over such a convenient spot on her own for a matter of days if she had been on her own, would hopefully guide the others there. If not, Sakura supposed she would go and search once she brought her strength up to par. She wanted to map out the area closest to her first though, lest she get lost in adventures to find the other three.

If anyone could survive for days or weeks in that unfamiliar, possibly hostile, place, she knew they would. And if something was watching over her, then she knew whatever it was would be watching over the other three too.

_Keep them safe,_ she begged, curling up into a ball in her safe space, mulling over whether there were any other gardens in the place. Surely for a civilisation as big as that one seemed… There had to be other sources of food and water. _Unless they had died – the plants that was._ She had no idea how long the place had been abandoned for, though she was betting on years upon years if the skeletons of soldiers she had passed on the way up were any indication.

The four of them wouldn’t be added to that number. Sakura, and the rest of them too she knew, would ensure that. They were Team Seven. They were tied together in soul. They followed each other through death, and they wouldn’t let each other pass over too easily. They stuck together no matter what, because though other people might come and go, they were constant. Always there, always together, no matter what.

* * *

She wasn’t entirely sure how many sleep cycles passed before she realised it, amidst the chakra and the regular physical exercise. It was the first clue she wasn’t exactly… human anymore. Either that or humans there operated in a manner completely unlike those in the Elemental Nations. The thought of humans – shinobi – back there being able to sleep and still carry out basic tasks like walking and running sent shivers down her spine. It made her smile and feel giddy with the slightest bit of amusement though—

Sakura froze, finally registering that the sense of amusement she felt wasn’t her own. No, it belonged to another _presence_. One which didn’t have a form there, as far as she could tell. She couldn’t see anyone lingering in the room, nor the corridor next to it. The area was blanketed with their power though. That Sakura could see as soon as she’d realised she wasn’t exactly alone there. The power was subtle, and suffusing through the plants, _giving them life._ And that was about the time when Sakura registered the being as a _non-threat._ They were keeping the plants alive, was about which she could work out. The plants which gave her the much needed food to keep her alive.

Whatever was there was actively ensuring she stayed alive, though Sakura wasn’t exactly sure of their motive there. _Though perhaps they had been involved in her incarnation and how it differed from the norm._

But the being, _spirit,_ gave her the impression she was incorrect with her last thought. Sakura wasn’t exactly sure of what it meant, given how she was battered under waves of _welcome_ and _love._ She tilted her head in confusion then, mulling over her latest discovery. She was curious about the _spirit_ which was seemingly watching over her and keeping her safe and whole as best as they could. The _love_ which radiated was gentle and warm, and it calmed her, as it had done many a times before without her noticing.

She was fairly certain she owed her sanity to the _spirit,_ but still, she did wonder whether the being would aid her friends too. Though whenever she wondered that she was buffeted by calmness and peace and something along the lines of _don’t worry, they’re safe_ from the spirit. But it was tinged with amusement, and the spirit never left her side in the garden, which was how Sakura had cottoned on to the fact that there might be other spirits, and that each of the four of them might have been being watched over by an individual spirit.

Sakura wasn’t certain of what to call her spirit, given she was certain they had a name. Everything did, even if she was unknowing of it. Although she was also unknowing of her own name there. A new world usually entailed a different language, and as such a new name bestowed upon her by her new mother and father. Sakura tilted her head, musing over the thought which had just cropped up, hinting at the fact she had spoken many different languages, though she couldn’t remember any of them.

So the spirit was stuck there without a name for Sakura to call them by or thank them with. She had the distinct impression the spirit identified more usually as a female. Which was fine by Sakura. Still didn’t get her any closer to figuring out the name, nor did Sakura know how to communicate beyond the feelings and emotions the spirit seemed to send out to her. It was something to mull over once she found the other three.

Though as to how they would communicate, given they hadn’t practiced their old language in their new bodies. There was something else on the tip of her tongue that wanted to sound, but Sakura couldn’t figure out exactly what it was. _Maybe there was a new language for her kind?_ She tilted her head, shrugging in the next second. Chakra manipulation was a more pressing concern, given her new surroundings.

Clambering up and down the far too smooth, deep grey walls like a four-legged spider brought another wave of amusement from her unseen watcher, and Sakura fought against the blush which wanted to rise in her cheeks. Though she supposed she was starting on chakra control younger than anyone else, and that probably merited some of the warm, almost motherly, amusement.

It was tedious work, but Sakura knew she had to get it done. Gods forbid if that demon woke and started moving, or if she encountered something similarly hostile in the stone walls. _Caves?_ Sakura mulled over what to call them, with a seemingly newfound obsession with putting names to places and people. She supposed she ought to have a hobby in the silence and emptiness, lest she go mad. Well, given how everyone had always told her chakra manipulation _wasn’t_ an appropriate hobby, if it even counted as one.

Sakura pouted at the thought, the memory, part of her aching deep down as she remembered all that she had left behind. She knew she was only taking things so well thanks to the knowledge that her soul always traversed the boundaries of death, time, and space. The intuitive feelings and knowledge preserved her sanity far more than if she had been thrown into another world in the body of a baby without any warning. Her definition of what was _normal_ had been slightly skewed as such.

It didn’t bother her. How could it? She had always known deep down that she had been different to her neighbours, different to her parents, just not in the usual _I’m unique_ sense. It went beyond that. Deeper.

Thoughts of her parents weren’t accompanied by much sadness, though she felt their loss, possibly more so or maybe less so because she didn't seem to have a new set. She couldn’t have been born naturally there, given how she had woken up alone right next door to a demon. She doubted any parents would be cruel or irresponsible enough to do just that. She doubted a child without the memories and knowledge she had would’ve been able to survive from babyhood to toddlerhood. She doubted she would’ve been able to either, given how vulnerable a baby’s body was.

Which was why she was certain her body – her vessel – had been created through some supernatural methods. All she had needed to do was reach the waters, still as they were, and they revealed to her the extent of what had been changed from her last form.

Her hair, for one, was no longer pink. Or short. Instead it fell to her back, dead straight – so that had been kept the same at least – but she was _blonde._ Even more blonde than Ino had been. In all honestly, it looked as though someone had dumped a vat of liquid gold over her head, what with how the glossy strands seemed to _glow_ in the moonlight. Sakura had doubts the colouring or the shininess would stay for long, given how it was almost guaranteed to be covered up by dirt soon enough. The shinobi in her approved.

The eyes were another thing. No longer the glinting jade green she remembered them to be. Instead, two irises which, similarly to her hair, looked like they had been spun out of metal. Not gold though. _Silver_. She had silver eyes. Sakura knew she could hardly call them grey. They were too light, too bright, for that. Calling them grey would be an insult to the colour.

She looked _alien._ Foreign. Moon Rabbit Kaguya-worthy. _And if that wasn’t an alarming comparison, she didn’t know what was._ Though thankfully she didn’t resemble that terrible woman in colouring, nor did she have an extra eye or other appendages. Yet, there was the added fact she now ironically had leaf-shaped ears. Rather funny, considering she had once lived in a village ‘hidden in the leaves’, or so Sakura thought. She wasn’t sure if the spirit really understood her amusement there.

Her skin was pale and had an almost luminous tinge to it when she bathed in the starlight. The starlight which matched her chakra colouring and feeling – so Sakura was rather happy to know her naming of that had been on the mark. She always felt so content when bathing in starlight too, part of her loving and longing to see the sky above without the grey stone blocking most of the view.

Yawning, she basked under the starlight then, the day having come and gone, leading to the evening time, and Sakura could only sleep – and not the waking-sleep she seemed to be capable of. She, oddly enough, preferred to rest so completely. _An effect of keeping her memories from her past life?_ Sakura could only muse over the possibilities. There was no one she could really speak to. She didn’t know the language of the spirit, and she hadn’t had any luck with speaking her old tongue with her new body. She just couldn’t seem to get the sounds right, and she was always struck by how strange her once familiar sounds seemed there. It felt difficult, and Sakura had quickly given up, what with how tense she became whenever the silence and stillness of her home was broken.

Sakura closed her eyes then, curling up into a ball, sighing in happiness as she slept amidst the fondness and gentle love of the spirit and the soothing light of the stars and moon above.

She was glad Kaguya wasn’t there to ruin things again.


	3. a million voices in your head that whisper, "stop, now"

He jolted awake, consciousness returning to him in an instant. One second he had been in that white space, comforted and calmed by the three connections his very soul had to three others, but now he was awake again. He had all his memories too, of when he had been obsessed with revenge and his brother. The dark cloud which had once covered him was gone though, and he felt _changed._ Sasuke figured that was the best word to describe what had happened – as though someone had descended upon his very soul and the chakra interwoven with it accompanied by a scrubbing brush.

It was like years’ worth of corruption had been purified, and Sasuke could think. He could finally see beyond the hazy cloud of an Uchiha’s love which had warped his very being. He could see what he had put the other three through, and part of him mourned for that. Part of him _knew_ intuitively how much they had been through together. _And he had always been the most difficult one out of all of them, hadn’t he?_

Really, he had no idea how he knew it. It was… instinct, he figured, and if there was one thing he had learnt after a life spent with Team Seven and on the run from said Team and the entirety of the rest of the world… Well, it was safe to say that he understood it was important to listen to instincts.

Though he wasn’t too sure of how to interpret those instincts of his. Not precisely in the very least, nor was he willing to base everything on them. He had survived as a rogue shinobi for many years. He knew better than to place his eggs in one basket. _He knew that now, at least._ He had chosen Orochimaru over the rest of the village and all the many options it would have given him.

If he had the chance to do it over, he would chose Team Seven, because while others came and go, they were his constant. The sun to his earth. He supposed now was his chance to do just that. They would be nearby, he knew. Which meant that he just needed to assess his chakra supplies, and then he would be off.

Frowning, Sasuke tried to pull on his chakra, eyes narrowing into flinty little chips when the ball of chakra in his gut remained firmly in said ball. He made a noise of irritation then, a scowl curving at his lips as he realised his apparent _reincarnation_ had obviously affected his chakra. _There was little else it could be and there was the distinct sensation that this event was perfectly normal for him._ Not only had his precious chakra been cleaned from the taint which had followed the Uchiha, it had also been reset back to basics. Back to pre-genin standards, possibly even pre-academy standards – something which rather irked him. _Because how was he supposed to move around stealthily in unknown territory without his chakra._

His chakra was prettier than it had ever been, all the pathways still in place even if smaller and unused, the core of his chakra network glowing palely, but tinged with an undercurrent of flame and fire. _A yellowish star,_ he was tempted to describe it at. He had no idea why _stars_ were the first thing to come to mind, but the fact of the matter was they had.

Dimly, he had the sense that somewhere nearby, Naruto was laughing at him.

It didn’t bother him as much as it might have once upon a time. Whatever had scrubbed at his soul and chakra had aided there too. He knew patience now, no longer the headstrong teenaged Uchiha he had been for the last parts of his life. Which was why he was slow to sit up from where he was lying – spread-eagled on a cold floor inlaid with marble. Sitting up, he glanced around his new accommodations, some part of him registering the lack of anyone else there as _strange._ He turned his attention to his body, eyes widening when he spotted his tiny toes. Nails were rounded and neatly trimmed, and there wasn’t a single blemish in sight on his creamy white skin—

Sasuke blinked, cheeks turning a blotchy bright red.

_He was naked._

There wasn’t a single piece of clothing in sight, and he had been lying, sprawled out in the middle of a… He blinked once more, finally taking the time to peer around the room which he had woken up in. The equipment, he recognised from the visit to a cousin – a weaponsmith. There were a few anvils – workstations – in the room, separated by floorspace, and all the other equipment needed to man a forge. That was undoubtedly what this place was.

But Sasuke cared not for the forge – there was dust lining things in the room, which meant clearly the place hadn’t been used for a long while. _Perhaps the owners were on holiday?_ All that mattered was that they weren’t there, demanding to know why Sasuke had intruded in their forge. Frankly, in that moment, Sasuke could care less about the owners of the place. He wanted to find some damned clothes.

So into the nearest cabinet-storage-whatever-it-was he went, scrounging for anything he could use. He didn’t particularly care if he somehow had to _make_ clothes. He would do it, because the alternative was running around completely starkers. Whether he liked it or not he was still an Uchiha, and he still had vestiges of his pride left. Enough that running around naked would’ve caused severe embarrassment. He had no idea where anybody was, but the other three would be close, and Sasuke would be damned if he met them _naked._

He was not giving Naruto any more blackmail material. Not that either of them needed anymore. Sakura just needed to make kissing noises, and the pair of them would shudder while Kakashi laughed in the background, like the utter git he was.

He rustled through the place, deciding to venture through the next door when his search of the forge proved futile. A happy sound gurgled from his unused throat upon finding a half-ruined curtain along with some thread and a needle. He’d had to scour the entire room to find them, but apparently the room was for textiles, or so Sasuke gathered from the cloths there – though most of them were ruined.

The needle poked his finger, a bead of blood welling up, and he stuck his finger in his mouth, fighting against the childish tears which had filled his eyes at the sharp prick of pain. _He really wished he had paid attention when his mother had taught him to sew._ After… he’d had all of his tailoring outsourced the way only a rich clan child could.

_It couldn’t be too hard to sew, though, could it?_

* * *

It was.

He took a number of attempts before he made something even remotely wearable, and even then it was more of him knotting things and cutting fabric rather than any actual sewing. But the final product was a set of makeshift boxers which looked far more like a loincloth than anything else, as well as a smock of some sort. Sasuke was happy with leaving it at that, but perfectionism was a bitter pill to swallow – because he had seemingly found a new hobby, and that was making clothes. He wanted to create things, and he had a burning desire to master the art of clothes design, no matter how satisfied he currently was with his homemade clothing.

But it was at that point his stomach and the emptiness within started making itself apparent. Which meant it was time to find food. Time to hunt and forage. _Though Sasuke didn’t want to leave the tools of his new craft behind._ Mind set on carrying them with him until he found an appropriate location to set up a base of sorts, he stuffed the fabrics and the needle and threads into a makeshift sack.

Nodding at his hard work, he picked the bundle up, frowning at the weight he could feel when he hefted it up onto his back. Though he supposed it wasn’t too surprising, given the current condition of his muscles: weak, and just generally non-existent. He had his mind set on amending that as soon as he found a good food supply along with a source of clean water. Both were key for survival, and given how his stomach was rumbling already, he needed to find food – which he rather hoped would be accompanied by a water supply. Rivers usually had towns around them, or so Sasuke mused.

Although it soon became apparent that he wasn’t in a town when he stuck his head out of the room for a glimpse at the world beyond the door. Rather, Sasuke had suspicions, going off the grey stone walls of the tunnels and the lack of natural light, that he was inside a cave of sorts. A collection of carved caves and numerous, confusing tunnels connecting them. Now clothed, he was comfortable walking around in them though the strange, seemingly underground civilisation.

Off in the distance, he could hear noises, clanging and rattling, however far away. Sasuke didn’t quite understand where he was though, so he chose the opposite way to the noise. Instead, he made his way toward the quiet. There had been far too many people who had lifted weapons to him while wandering in the wilds of the Elemental Nations.

But those lands were behind him now, and he had new ones to explore. Naruto would have probably had the time of his life there – what with him being something of an overly happy, free spirit – but Sasuke? Sasuke didn’t like exploring lands untold, no matter how _normal_ things seemed for him right then and there. He liked consistency. He always had – which was probably why the rest of Team Seven was such a balm to his aged soul.

Nevertheless, food and water were good sources of motivation to get moving, with the sharp dagger he had found amidst his scavenging for fabrics tucked safely into its sheath on the belt he had made. As he was leaving, he gave into the temptation to grab one of the hammers off the shelves on one side of the forge room. _One never knew when weapons would come in handy._

Silently, he took note of all of the other weaponizable utensils, making a mental note to keep this place in mind should the civilisation outside be hostile for one reason or another. _There had to be a reason the body he was in seemingly didn’t have parents, because something inside him told him it wasn’t correct to be without them as such._

* * *

_When in doubt, use your nose._

It was one of those random sayings Sasuke had come across in his life, but it came in handy right then and there, because although everything else about him seemed to have been diminished his eyesight, hearing, and his sense of smell had been improved… which was _handy_ to say the least, because he could smell fresher air, and that was what he followed, and when he heard the sounds of water trickling by, he knew he had found a good spot to set up camp.

Really, it had been slightly unnerving how his feet had seemingly guided him to where he needed to be, but Sasuke was thankful they had. The caves seemingly had an opening of sorts which bordered on the edge of a mountain, and within that opening, sunlight streamed through onto a garden patch there – complete with its own irrigation system. There were an alarming number of weeds there, but things were still growing, despite the glaring state of abandonment.

He could work with it though, even if there didn’t appear to be any tomatoes there. Until he felt strong enough to properly explore the numerous networks of tunnels he had discovered on his trip to the garden. Then, and only then, would he venture out in search of the other three, and really – he knew them. He knew they would likely do as he had, and he had faith in all of them to survive.

He would trust in them to do just that.

They were safe. They had to be.


	4. that I must be outta my mind, but you had me underrated

He was caught by the inexplicable need to _find_ and _protect,_ as had always been his nature, he knew. _How did he know that?_ Kakashi could only wonder, but instincts were something he had learnt never to ignore. So he didn’t – ignore them, that was. Instead, he listened to them, especially when the blaring feeling of _not being completely alone_ was one of them. Something had surrounded him, like the blissful warmth of a summer’s day, and he often heard words being whispered in his ears in a sweet, melodic voice. Not that he could understand those words, but it was undoubtedly a language of some sorts and not complete imbecility.

Still, none of that detracted from the fact he had woken up in the middle of some sort of wide shaft at the base of a set of very long, spiralling staircases, and at the landing at the top of another. Truly, Kakashi was grateful not to have rolled over in his sleep as Naruto or Sakura might have done. They had always been the ones who tossed and turned in their sleep… well, before the war and the general all-around exhaustion which had led to them all sleeping like the dead.

Though sleeping wouldn’t help him there. He was probably as exposed as he could be, visible from pretty much every direction, and part of him bared his teeth at the thought of that. He didn’t like being vulnerable, he never had, more so when he’d had the other three. They were always somewhat younger than him, and he, as far as some odd part of him could recall, had always been a guiding, protective figure to them all.

Kakashi knew he would have to become one once more.

Edging towards the bannister, he peered over, hoping it would give him a clue as to his location and the whereabouts of the other three – he knew they were there, he could feel it – but that wasn’t to be. Instead, he was graced with the sight of a long, long drop, one so deep he could see the bottom. _A mine shaft, or something of that sort._ He could see a pulley system on the wall opposite his location, most of it in a state of disrepair, likely due to disuse.

A frown pulled at his lips as he mulled over the many possibilities… but if he coupled the evidence with the general disrepair he could see littered about the place. _Abandoned._ The place he was in was abandoned – that part of the civilisation, or so he assumed. He was fairly sure he could hear some noise in the distance, disturbing the almost unearthly silence and stillness of that dark, grey area.

Frowning, he tried to channel the pool of – dare he say _radiant_ – chakra from his core, a scowl marring his face as his attempts to manipulate it ended in failure. Not that it was the end of the world, of course. The most dangerous thing about him as a shinobi wasn’t the fact he couldn’t use chakra, nor the noodle-like limbs which had replaced his muscled ones. No. The most dangerous thing was his mind, and not even his death and subsequent rebirth could change that fact. So sleuthing up the stairs it was – because it was always better to up, unless the place in question was sealed to ensure gravity was reversed. _Needless to say the archives of Uzu were a dangerous place to visit, worthy of the S-Rank pay he had been awarded upon successful completion of said mission._

Though Kakashi was fairly certain he wasn’t on the island of Uzushio. In fact, going by the incomprehensible script on the walls at certain intervals which didn’t line up with any written language he knew… He was going to go out on a limb and assume he had been throw into a new world. Another planet – Kaguya had to come from some place like that, so why couldn’t he be thrown into a new world after death and reincarnation? The thought seemed to resonate with his very soul, and Kakashi knew he ought to listen to snippets of intuition from his soul itself. He didn’t have the memories of where his soul had been before – barring the most previous, of course – but the instincts from those times. Those had most certainly remained, and like any half-decent shinobi, Kakashi was going to use them to their fullest extent.

So up the stairs he went, keeping low to the ground, moving on all fours as he bounded up the steps like the wolves his once-clan had been so renowned for. Kakashi supposed he would make good use of his teeth as a weapon if the situation called for it. He couldn’t confirm the hostility of any sorts of beings around him, nor would he be able to fight against them with ease, given his small stature and child-like appearance – because it would have taken a blind, ignorant man to not realise that he had seemingly been shoved into the body of a child of some sort with his death and subsequent embodiment in that place.

Up he went. Up and up. Sounds of banging and hammering grew louder as he did, and Kakashi took pains to reduce the amount of noise he made, which also reduced his speed of travel which was, unfortunately, already a snail’s pace as it was. But patience was a learned trait of his, and though he might’ve been a child in body, he had an adult’s memories locked away in his mind – and it wasn’t just any adult. No. He was a shinobi through and through, no matter what form he took, so he moved on quietly, hoping to find a good spot to rest. Supplies wouldn’t have gone amiss, either. He needed to learn more about the layout of the place, and he would do so as he searched for the other three. They needed to be reunited once more. He wouldn’t have it any other way. They wouldn’t be separated again. Never. Which meant he definitely needed to find Sasuke as soon as possible. He was the one who had the tendency to wander off. Naruto did as well, but it was less of his own volition, and more because he’d been distracted. _Tempted,_ some buried fragment of memory whispered.

But that wasn’t the time to be getting caught up in memories. He was entering what was usually known as the _danger zone_. An area where he was highly likely to be caught or otherwise seen by hostiles. He couldn’t lose focus there. He couldn’t afford to make any noise. Well, as little as he could, as seemingly stuck without his chakra as he was. He closed his eyes, dark as it was, relying on his other senses to inform him of danger. _His new sense of hearing was absolutely wonderful._ He could tell it had been improved from his last set, which really said something. After the Hatake had their family contract with wolves, all of their senses aside from touch had improved by leaps and bounds… but his new ones…

Footsteps sounded then, and Kakashi froze for all of a few seconds before dropping behind a pile of rubble which littered the steps there. It was just about enough to cover the entirety of him, or so he assumed, going off of the angle of view given to those walking along the landing at the very top of those stairs. Heartbeat echoing in his ears, the rush of blood audible with every thud, he stayed still and watched.

Two stout, stocky men walked by, dressed in some form of armour which looked more decorative than practical. Silently, Kakashi reprimanded himself for judging them by their flashy armour. It was hardly his fault ANBU regulations stipulated bland, identical armour, which meant no funky engravings as he’d just seen. They looked different though. And Kakashi silently tried to work out what was bothering him about the scene he had just witnessed as he waited for a few more minute, until the audible thuds of their heavy footfalls had faded away.

He crept up then to the walkway where those strange men had just passed, realisation hitting him only when he stood tall. Because those men had been short. So very short. His body was that of an itsy bitsy child, and that was going off the amount of baby fat still lining his cheeks and wrists – not that he’d managed to find a reflective surface as of yet, and Kakashi knew it wouldn’t take long before his still would-be-undersized body would soon reach the height. His hair was long though. That much he could tell without a mirror, given how it was long enough to brush against the base of his spine. He would be cutting that as soon as possible – of possibly tying it back, given how it wasn’t particularly spiky, and thus wouldn’t be able to conceal uneven lengths. He might not have been as focused on fashion as dear Sakura had been, but he was self-conscious enough to not want to walk around looking as though he had his hair sheared off by an enemy. _Because it was a showing that an enemy had gotten to him, and not that he had taken a knife to his own hair in the dark._ Shinobi never trusted hairdressers. Sharp scissor blades near their vulnerable necks? _No thank you._

Pulling himself out of his musings once more, Kakashi ducked out of the well-used corridor. At least he assumed it was well-used, given how clear and clean it was. In fact, repairs were underway, hinting that part of the grand cave structure was undergoing repairs. Though really, Kakashi rather hoped that _whatever the hell that was way downstairs_ didn’t decide to wake up and come and ruin all those repairs. He wondered if the Uzumaki equivalent of that place had come and sealed away the monstrosity of chakra in what had to be the dungeons. What else could be down that deep? Besides, it had to be contained there in some form, otherwise the people wouldn’t feel safe living there.

It would take an absolute moron, or just someone completely ignorant of chakra – like civilians – to be unaware of the danger in the dungeons. The ones who walked by were clearly warriors, despite their slightly meagre, and slightly odd chakra. Their chakra had been nothing like his own, but he couldn’t tell how so. He hadn’t the skill with chakra sensing to actually be labelled a _chakra sensor._ Shrugging, he continued making his way across the level which was definitely in use, meaning he ought to get out of there as quickly as possible. _Perhaps he’d be able to come back after remastering wall climbing?_ The thought made him grimace. Simple chakra manipulations, the basics, were going to have to be retaught with his glowing chakra.

_There was no time like the present to begin on them._ Well, as soon as he was out of the _danger zone_ he would begin.

* * *

It was something of an artform to work out how to use his chakra to climb across the walls like a crab. He couldn’t quite manage simply walking upright, none of his muscles able to support him, but walking and running on all fours. Now that was working rather wonderfully for him. So that was how he began to move, always careful to pause or move perilously slowly whenever people moved about beneath him.

Really, Kakashi was surprised at how little the men looked upwards. None of them had yet to, and though he was eternally grateful for that, he couldn’t help but judge the safety and security of the little _colony_ – he believed that was the right word to describe them. There were only those on that floor, and they didn’t even number fifty. An advance party of some sort, Kakashi mused, playing with the idea for a few moments before his big brain moved onto other things. _Like where in the place his little packmates were?_ He had been there for at least forty sleep cycles, found various places holding weaponry along with food and water – mainly by shadowing the advance colony there. But he had figured he’d need to go further afield to find his wayward students. _Ex-students._ They were powerful shinobi each in their own right. He had thought he might’ve been able to find Sakura via what had been demolished – though he’d soon recalled _chakra manipulation_ would be an issue there. Even Naruto, his least stealthy packmate hadn’t shown hide or hair of himself.

_Kakashi was proud,_ not that he would ever admit that. Though he supposed Naruto had been loud by choice rather than clumsiness. He was choosing to be quiet now, which really was only making his self-styled mission to find the rest of his quartet that much more difficult. He was hardly going to give up though. They had to be together, and he would bring them as such. He assumed the manner of being watching over him was supportive of his desire to find the other three – otherwise he assumed they would have somehow put a stop to his efforts. They were powerful enough to, that was for sure. That wasn’t an assumption – he’d probably been making a few too many of those, but there was naught else to do. He couldn’t understand the strange tongues of the stout, stocky armoured men – and he knew there were at least two languages there, going off his comprehension of the unfamiliar, _alien_ words and the two different tones when they spoke to each other.

Not that it mattered too much. He couldn’t understand either, and he had the most horrible of inklings that no one would speak the language of the Elemental Nations. Some sort of level of fear had sunk into his very bones at that thought. Because there were little things he was more scared of than being misunderstood. It was all too easy to make enemies that way – by misjudging or insulting their culture. _Because if there was one thing he’d learnt from his travels around the Elemental Nations it was that each place generally had its own culture._

But he would worry about that when the time to interact with their fellow humans in their new lands. For now, he needed to worry about finding and interacting with his quartet. None of them could speak, he knew. The language of the Elemental Nations just didn’t fall off his tongue, no matter how hard he tried. _Which was probably going to throw a wrench in their group, but Kakashi was certain they would pull it off._ They had certainly been together long enough to manage that much.

Sighing quietly, he made his way down a dingy little pathway he had yet to explore, eyes narrowing on the armoured skeleton he found, black arrows littering the place nearby, some caught between the chest plate and the shoulder plate. Something was wrong there, but he knew it would have had to occurred years before they settled down there. Which meant that, hopefully, the threat had passed. It would make sense, given how the armour of the dead thing, matched the designs and make of the stout men a few levels below. They would have been idiots to move in before the threat was dealt with. _Or they might have been cleaning up the place ready for the next wave of inhabitants._ That was another option – one Kakashi was careful to consider.

It only fuelled his motivation to find the other three as quickly as possible. They would be stronger as a group. Armies weren’t made from a single man. _Well unless they were a certain Raikage, but Konoha didn’t talk about him, more so after the Hyuga incident._ Yawning, he pulled his thoughts off the past – because like it or not, Konoha was past. _Kaguya was probably the only thing left._ Bitterness filled him them, along with sorrow and grief as he thought on his dead homeland. But the other three were more important than his emotions. They were alive, he knew, and he had to ensure they stayed that way.

He spared the corpse one last look, plunging on through the corridor he had yet to explore. Whoever had built the tunnels – and he had strong suspicions of the stocky, short men – seemed to favour long corridors with various branches. The only lucky thing was that each level seemed to have some sort of pattern, and Kakashi was excellent at figuring those out, as well as committing them to memory every time he hurried through each level. He was working his way to the very top, assuming his students would have moved in that direction, unless wherever they were had the supplies all of them had been looking for. He knew he had found various places, all of them scattered over the place, with at least one per level, oftentimes two, given how large each level was.

They would each be around one, he knew, which was why he made his way to where he approximated another source of both food and drink would be. He made his way along the ceiling, keeping his eyes peeled for any sort of movement which would alert him to any of the stocky cave explorers, foe, or if he was lucky, one of the three he was looking for. His hair was tied back by then, braided and then knotted into a bun at the back of his head using a leather thong, meaning it didn’t impede his vision, nor could it give him away by dangling from the ceiling, as long as it once had. _It was a miracle no one had noticed the silvery sheen—_

Silver flashed in his vision, moving across the floor, followed by a squeal of pain. His teeth bared then, only to stop as he noticed the silvery-haired, tiny, little figure who was now crouching on the ground. A dead rat was clutched between pearly white teeth stained with blood, blue eyes almost glowing in the dimness of their surroundings, and Kakashi sucked in a sharp breath, because no matter his new appearance, he knew the soul which resided inside that small form.

Naruto.

He dropped down from the ceiling then, tilting his head at the hiss he received at his near silent arrival. _Startled and warry, Naruto was._ Kakashi waited though. He waited until Naruto recognised him, and he could tell in those _b_ _lue-blue_ eyes when that recognition sunk in. The fact he stopped hissing like a cat – _he’d have thought that to be Sasuke’s thing_ – was also another indicator, and Kakashi took that as his cue to bound forwards on four limbs. His approach had an ounce of hesitance to it, part of him worrying about how Naruto would react to his touch. _He had always been the most feral, the most animal-like, of the four of them, with he himself coming in a close second, with Sasuke third in the running. Sakura would probably be the most adjusted of all of them._

He really couldn’t picture his prim, proper, only female student being anything less than composed. _Either that or angry enough to punt people through mountains. Or cave walls, there was that option – especially if she had figured out how to manipulate her chakra once more._ She was the most intelligent after him. _After all, Sasuke had run away, and that was a dumb thing to do._

His feet and hands made no noise as he padded over to Naruto, frowning for a moment at the loss of the once familiar whisker markings which had lined those cheeks. They were gone, as was the fox – the only being who Kakashi could really compare the creature of malice and fire below to. Naruto was Naruto though, or so he told himself as he rubbed his cheek against Naruto’s own, uncaring of the change in skin tone, and the hair colouring. The eyes were the only thing even remotely similar, and they were a far darker blue. Like the ocean, rather than the azure sky they had once seemed to imitate.

Kakashi tilted his head, extending his sense then, eyes narrowing as he felt another _similar_ presence to the one which had been following him. _Protecting him,_ part of him whispered. He resisted the sudden urge to nod at that thought. Unlike his own which felt light and airy, Naruto’s assumed guardian spirit of sorts felt like roiling thunder and sea storms. They felt… oppressive in a way, and yet wild and free in another. _Changeable, like the tides of the sea as they ebbed and surged._

Naruto had once been born of wind and sea salt, a whisper of a stormy isle which had fallen to war and strife – it’s people spread across the lands. It was only fitting that his seeming guardian had a connection to the waters which had once surrounded his kinsfolk.

A rumble sounded from Naruto’s throat, and it took Kakashi a moment to realise it was Naruto’s approximation of a purr. _Because sounds like those were the only sorts they could make, what with the language of the Elemental Nations being unable to slip from their tongues._ His student had been clever enough to work that out and had figured his own way of communication. _Of sorts._ It was hardly a language and wouldn’t help if it came to battling foes.

Kakashi only hoped there would be no foes for them to fight, but he knew it was a wish unlikely to be granted. There was a demon, some sort of amalgamation of _pure evil_ below their feet – which made him shudder and fear in ways he had never before – and if that wasn’t an indication of foul things to come, he didn’t know what would be. All he knew was that he needed to keep the four of them safe, and he could start with Naruto now. _And hopefully get him into some sort of fighting shape before their cursed luck came calling once more._

There were no doubts it would come calling with something foul, which was why they had to be ready. Why they had to be united once more, ready to do battle, because if something happened… _or if that creature of death-danger-fire-hatred-malice-kill freed itself from the binds the stocky creatures had to have put upon it…_ Kakashi swallowed then, worry suffusing through him. He needed to find the others, and then they needed to find an exit to the place. Or possibly establish communications with the stocky people – they seemed like good sorts, or so his instincts, and his guardian spirit were telling him. Maybe even both, if he was feeling adventurous, and he assumed one had to when thrown into a new place, in a new, adorably squishy body.

But those were less pressing matters than finding the rest of his pack.

One down.

Two to go.


	5. i’m not gonna make it alone (la, la-la-la-la-la, 'lone)

He snuggled into the warmth, a rumble escaping him at the blissful sensation suffusing through him at the familiar touch. Time had passed since their arrival there. How much, Naruto couldn’t quite tell. There wasn’t any outside light, stuck in the caves as he and Kakashi were. And how glad he was to have found Kakashi – or, perhaps more accurately, to have been found by Kakashi. He was more than happy to share the rats he hunted with his older brother. _He was family._ Naruto wondered how he knew that much. _Distant family then and there._ For Kakashi was missing the almost unearthly glow in his eyes which Naruto himself seemed to possess.

It had been startling to see, the first time in that puddle of water he had lapped at. _He had been terribly thirsty, which had led to him throwing away his inhibitions._ Not that he had really had all that many. He could still remember trying to survive back in Konoha when everyone still thought of him as the ‘fox brat’. Part of him was terribly glad that part of his life was over. The other part of him missed the rumbling voice in the back of his head, the same voice he had come to depend on and rely on somewhat. They had been partners, however briefly, but Naruto had left him behind. _Kurama._

Though that was always how it had been – he, Sakura, Sasuke, and Kakashi had always been together no matter where they were. Everyone else was just… those who got left behind, and no matter the slight ache which came to mind when he thought about Konoha, there was naught he could do to get back there. The village had probably been razed to the ground by then. Kaguya had won. She had killed them all, the last hope for all those stuck in the Infinite Tsukuyomi. Dimly, Naruto hoped they were all living well in that dream world. _Even if it meant the end of humanity._ He was no longer there anymore. He had died, and his connection, emotional or perhaps physical, with that world had been altered.

Because he felt as though he had just been an observer in that world. His memories were like watching his life through the screen of a television. Shrugging, he resumed following Kakashi as they prowled upwards through the cave system. He didn’t particularly know why they were heading upwards. There was more of the cave downstairs than upwards, and thus a higher chance of finding their two missing members downwards rather than upwards. He wanted to find them, wanted to see them safe and whole – because he wasn’t blind. He had seen the skeletons and the black arrows which had seemingly killed them. Wherever they were wasn’t guaranteed to be safe, which was probably why they were being so hesitant about the stocky people in one of the halls below. They didn’t know if they were friend of foe, no matter the weird feeling of… Naruto wasn’t too sure how to describe it. Something akin to safety… whenever they came near them.

Kakashi hadn’t made contact though, and Naruto followed in his example, not wanting to do that which his elder brother wasn’t willing. Finding the others took precedence over that anyway. He needed to find his family, which was how they wound up stealthily making their way up and up until the finally reached the topmost floor. He followed Kakashi, staying close on his tail, scanning every corridor as though it might contain a threat. _Or Sakura and Sasuke, maybe, if they were lucky._ His control over his chakra, as per usual, was tenuous at best, but it was getting better. Albeit at a snail’s pace that was. His battle sense hadn’t left him though, so when the sound of footsteps, different and louder – _panicked_ – reached them, they ventured high up on the wall, clinging with all four limbs to the smooth tunnel sides.

_It_ ran by then. A humanoid being with greyish skin and yellow eyes. Naruto felt his nose wrinkle at the stench he could smell from his position there against the wall a good metre or two away. Really, he was glad he wasn’t any closer, lest he find himself with the sudden urge to vomit and subsequently give away their position. Not that it would matter.

The creature was undoubtedly fleeing from something – probably a bigger threat. That was usually what things fled from. The only question was what form the monster it was fleeing from took. His ears twitched, barely able to pick up the soft sounds of pursuit. The bigger creature was undoubtedly light on its feet. A snarl, guttural and bloodthirsty, reached him, and Naruto gulped at the sight of the monster—

_Oh wait._

That was Sakura.

A noise escaped him then, and he tilted his head as he watched his sister pull herself to a crouched position, looking away from the corpse she had made. Black blood leaked from the corners of her mouth, and she spat out the chunk of wrinkled flesh she had ripped out from the creature’s throat. That had seemingly been her method of killing the beast before them. Her hair was too dirty to be able to tell the colour, though Naruto was fairly certain his silvery locks were in the same condition. Kakashi had thrown a bit of dirt and dust over both of their heads at one point. It had taken Naruto a short while to realise that their hair colours were a bit distinctive in contrast to their surroundings.

Gingerly, aware of Sakura’s eyes on him, Naruto dropped to the ground, landing silently with his chakra cushioning his feet. Dimly, part of him was aware he was still butt naked. Sakura, meanwhile, in her loneliness, had managed to find a cloth to tie around her waist. The ends were frayed and torn, but it covered her to her knees, grimy and smelly as it was. He padded forwards then, cautious as he always was with the girl who was able to punt him through walls. Her ears were just as pointed as his and Kakashi’s, proof they were the same, no matter their colouring.

Sakura’s colouring was strange. Her eyes were silvery, and they held the same light Naruto’s own did. Ennobled. The word came to him then, and he tilted his head curiously. _If only he could say the word aloud, but alas… verbal communication was beyond them still._ Though it didn’t stop him from cautiously rubbing his cheek against her own in a greeting. Kakashi followed suit. But that was about as much contact as she allowed. She shirked around them, visibly uncomfortable at the touch. _Because she had been without it for too long._

He had lost count of the number of sleep cycles – the only measurement of time they really had – between Kakashi finding him and the pair of them finding Sakura then. Which meant there had undoubtedly been a lot. Sakura had been all alone until then. His brow wrinkled, and Sakura jerked her head then, dark blood still staining her chin and lips as she padded back down the way she came.

Naruto turned to Kakashi then, following dutifully as they both decided to follow their sister back to wherever she was going. The tunnels she led them through were ones which they had yet to explore on that floor. Unfamiliar as they were with them, they followed her through the maze of corridors, most of them dilapidated and in need of some sort of repair. Their pace was slow, though Naruto presumed it was for his and Kakashi’s sake. Sakura had all but proven she could still move quickly when it came to pursuing her enemies.

Case in point, the creature left well behind them.

Stairs were what they were led to next, leading to what Naruto presumed to be the highest part of the cave. They were broken part way, only accessible by jumping or using the walls to reach the top. It was rather safe in the grand scheme of things, considering there were apparently other lifeforms living there. _And Sakura had seen fit to kill the grey-skinned being who had made Naruto feel oddly unnerved._ Well, or so he thought in retrospect.

They arrived then, in what Naruto presumed to be Sakura’s home of sorts in the cave. There was a bed made of what looked like moss in the corner of the little garden Sakura had found in the depths of the cave. His stomach grumbled then, and a pulpy red fruit was thrown at him courtesy of Sakura.

She settled then on the moss, and wisely, Naruto took a seat a fair distance away. Sakura seemingly had picked up the habit of growling under her breath should he or Kakashi come too close to the little bubble of personal space she seemed to have erected. Though it didn’t affect him all that much. His hunger was a more pressing concern, and the fruit was very different to his usual fare of raw meat. Humming, Naruto got to work on his eating, all too aware of those silvery eyes boring holes into him as he sat on the floor of Sakura’s makeshift den. Flavours burst on his tongue, and he smiled and nodded at Sakura then. _It was good, and he was sort of jealous of her – being able to eat such foods every day rather than the raw meats which hurt his stomach._ Oftentimes it had been too dangerous to risk a fire, should they be able to find kindling.

He smiled then, his stomach content, along with his worries as he revelled in the knowledge that they had found Sakura. She was safe. Now they just had to find Sasuke, and then their set would be complete.

They would be together, as they were so meant to, and then they could… Naruto blinked, looking up at the little skylights which seemed to be made from glass and jewels, providing them with a scant glimpse, a tease, of the beautiful skies above. He closed his eyes then, imagining the wind ruffling his hair. His nose was full of the soothing scent of salt water, the waters lapping at the edge of a sailboat.

His eyes opened then, dispelling the illusion, and part of him longed to see the shores. _To sail upon the ocean in a boat._ He had always been born of wind and sea salt, and the waters – no longer of Uzushio – beckoned to him so.

Kakashi had found a piece of spare cloth to wrap around himself, and, uncaring of his own nudity, Naruto went and nuzzled at his older brother. It felt only right to call them both family. Eternal family. They just needed Sasuke to complete themselves – to alleviate the worry which curled in smoky wisps at the back of his mind. There was danger in the cave halls they dwelled in currently, and oddly enough, Naruto couldn’t wait until they found Sasuke and left the dreary place. Undoubtedly, the craftmanship of the place was something to behold, but it didn’t feel like a viable place for their new home in their new world. Naruto wanted a place more open. _He wanted to sail, a deep longing for the sea nestling in his very bones themselves as he thought of waters, of blue waves cresting on a beach, of seafoam spraying against rocks._

Sighing then, he settled down for the night, snuggled only against Kakashi on the hard ground they were so used to sleeping upon by that point in time. Silver eyes watched them from her perch upon the slightly softer moss, at least until they all drifted off into a peaceful slumber.


	6. don't even try, no don't change me

They had found her – Naruto and Kakashi that was, and then it was just Sasuke left to go until they could be complete and content once more. The two of them always curled up together, leeching heat from one another, and as comfy as it looked, Sakura just couldn’t bring herself to join in. She didn’t like being touched, something she knew had arisen from her time before meeting them. When she had been surrounded by nothing but plants, water, and the strange spirit which watched over her so.

Touch felt strange. _Foreign._ The feel of skin on skin for more than a couple of seconds felt uncomfortable, and Sakura didn’t like that. So she set herself apart somewhat from the snugglefest before her, watching over her makeshift family as they began assembling into one group. All they needed was their mysteriously missing member. Sakura only hoped Sasuke hadn’t gone off gallivanting on his own, as was his apparent tendency to do.

Naruto and Kakashi stirred then, coming awake in accordance with their natural body clocks, and then began the preparations to explore. There was a bag made from scraps of cloth which Sakura had scavenged from the area around her little den, and foodstuffs were gathered then, carefully collected in order to last them a number of sleep cycles. Water was harder to carry, but fortunately they had come across a few buckets attached to disused pulley systems. They were forged from metal rather than wood or another material, meaning they could still be used.

Kakashi was in charge of carrying them, being the biggest of them, and Naruto took the initiative with their other vital resource, which meant Sakura was left with their protection – or so she assumed. There was nothing else to be taken with them, and given they had seen how strong she was, it had to be that they were trusting their defence and scouting for danger to her. Sakura felt her chest puff up with pride. _Because she was far more useful than before._

Nodding to the two of them, she set off out of their place of safety, bounding down the broken stone steps, keeping her eyes peeled for any form of movement and her ears pulsing with chakra to steer them away from any hostiles. _Or to go ahead and eliminate the obstacles in her path._ Cautious, she prowled forward, leading the group of them to the stairs which led down. _Away from the roof windows which let them see the stars._ Part of her mourned that loss, but Sasuke was undoubtedly more important than stars.

Hesitant, she stared at the gloomy staircase leading to the next level down, heart pounding in her chest at the sight of them. She had climbed up them what felt like months ago. It could well have been, given she had no real sense of time in that place, aside from the skylights.

Naruto brushed past her, heedless of the way she flinched, fear coming to grip at her heart as she stared at the relatively _unknown_ place. _Because down led back to that demon. The scary demon which she had woken far too close to._ How long had she run for to escape it? She couldn’t remember by then. All she had known at the time was utter terror and dread.

But Naruto had already ventured down, and Kakashi waited behind her, staring at her as if to ask, ‘why are you stopping?’ Sakura swallowed sharply, taking a deep breath as she dared to put her foot down on the first step of many. She couldn’t afford to languish in fear. She couldn’t afford to waste time – precious time they needed to find Sasuke. _And if something happened to Sasuke because they didn’t reach him in time…_ Jaw set, she hurried down after Naruto, quashing her fears into a tiny ball. She was a kunoichi. A shinobi. She could deal with it. _And rip out the throat of anything which dared to harm her family with her bare teeth._

A smile curved across her face, and she nodded happily to herself, allowing Naruto to take the lead as he led them down and down through the maze of tunnels and spiralling staircases. The trip there, much like her original trip up, was rather clear and silent. Void of any of the strange creatures which had tried to attack her upon sight. Dimly, she was aware that she likely still had the blood of those creatures in her hair. But that simply hid the obnoxious gold colouring of her locks, and so Sakura left it be.

Those golden locks were so terribly foreign. From what she could tell both Naruto and Kakashi’s long locks were a silvery colour. Sakura thought that the silvery colour wasn’t too much of a jump from blonde. It could, perhaps be mistaken for a pale blonde. _Besides, when did boys fuss over their hair colouring?_ But she had grown up once with pink hair. Wonderful pink hair. It had made her who she was, made her recognisable to her allies and her enemies. _And now it was gone, and part of her mourned its loss._ Sure, the golden hair would no doubt be very pretty once it was free of all the muck and grime, but it wasn’t the same. She didn’t care about being pretty. She cared about being Sakura.

She hadn’t had a bath in weeks, though oddly enough there was no terrible smell of body odour wafting from her. Likely because her new body hadn’t been through puberty, given how tiny it was. Or at least she assumed she was tiny. There wasn’t really anything too substantial to compare herself to – none who looked the same as them, with pointed ears, but bigger and fully grown. Part of her wondered if the civilisation in those tunnels had once belonged to her new people, but as per usual there just wasn’t enough information. She couldn’t speak, let alone read or write. Though she was determined to eventually learn.

Sighing quietly, she resumed paying attention to her surroundings, knowing she had to ensure the safety of their group. She was in charge of that – it was her responsibility, and she refused to let them all down. Eyes narrowed, she focused on the task before, remembering the scant grey-skinned creatures which had tried to attack her on sight. There was danger there, and she was going to protect them. Her starlight chakra hummed in agreement, and Sakura nodded sharply. She would defend them or die trying. A growl, low and rumbling, slipped from her throat then, hairs on the back of her neck standing up on end as Naruto leapt up onto the wall and started shuffling along it.

_Why was he doing that when there was a perfectly good floor space in front of them?_ Frowning, she found herself so focused on puzzling out Naruto’s actions that she jumped when Kakashi nudged her, gesturing up to where Naruto was. The meaning was obvious – follow him. Not one to question orders – not that communication was particularly easy – she leapt up onto the wall, grateful she wasn’t lumbered down with anything as she crawled across the walls on all fours.

Kakashi had the hardest time, what with a bucket weighing down each hand as he all but shuffled across at a painfully slow speed. Sakura found her eyes narrowing, hairs on he back of her neck standing on end as she surveyed the corridor. _Were there traps down there or something?_ Puzzled, it took a few moments for Sakura to actually hear the sounds which began to echo down that hallway. _Oh._ She blinked, realisation setting in. _There were enemies on that floor. Things they couldn’t be spotted by._

Baring her teeth, she followed in the other’s examples, remaining stock still as she readied herself for battle just in case they were noticed. But rather than any more terrible grey-skinned beings, she found herself met with the sight of – Sakura tilted her head – _short people?_ They were still taller than all of them, and at least three times as wide. Well, while they were wearing that bulky armour of theirs. Sakura could only blink in surprise at the sight of that armour – because if she had ever needed the proof they weren’t in the Elemental Nations before, that was it. No one there had ever bothered with such decorative-looking armour, which undoubtedly still did the job. It was just… patterned. Easily recognisable and different from the rest that it wouldn’t have blended with either the shinobi or the samurai lifestyle.

Distantly, she watched them walk by beneath them, feeling terribly bored all of a sudden as they just waited for the area to be clear so they could continue with their search for—

_Clang!_

Her head snapped around at the distinct sound of metal meeting metal, heart pounding as she spotted the bucket which had collided with the helmet one of the stout, bearded people wore. Blankly, she stared at the handle Kakashi held, the metal having worn out somewhere, allowing for the bucket and its contents to fall. Water spilt all over the unfortunate short person in question and splattered on a couple of others nearby too. Though Sakura was less concerned for the bearded people, and more worried for themselves. Her eyes flickered down, darting about as she met the thin, narrowed eyes which stared back at her from craggy faces. Naruto bolted forwards, and Sakura followed as quickly as she dared, sparing a glance back at the group of strange people.

Perhaps, had they been able to communicate with the people and they were subsequently friendly, they might have been able to laugh the whole thing off as a prank. _As it was…_ Sakura’s eyes widened, spying the small bow being drawn by one with less grey streaks in their beard. Their hands were shaking, and there was a horrible amount of shouting. Hands waved, fingers pointed, voices yelled, pandemonium erupted, and Sakura could only yip and make pointed motions at Kakashi who lingered behind, weighed down by their sole bucket of water remaining.

_Idiot,_ Sakura wanted to hiss, _drop it._ They could find another water supply or they could go back up at a later time when it was safe to sneak past the strange new group of people. They hardly gave off the same feeling as those grey-skinned horrible creatures whose throats Sakura had ripped out. _It had hardly been a safe way of killing. Who knew what toxins or diseases were in their blood?_ Sakura hadn’t had many options at the time though, so punches, kicks, and teeth mainly it had been. She was still fine then, even after time had passed, so she figured she was alright. _As long as she was strong enough to protect her team, then nothing else mattered._

A bowstring sung, arrow soaring up, the aim skewed. _Yet it still hit._ A snarl ripped from her throat as the last bucket fell along with Kakashi – a fletched, barbed arrow sticking out from his calf. Chakra pulsed in her feet, and dimly, she heard Naruto stop running somewhere behind her now as she leapt back. Teeth bared, she growled at the _bad-evil-enemies_ who’d shot her precious family. They had hurt him. Though rather than pressing their advantage and attacking with the axes and swords they had seemingly equipped themselves with upon sight of them, they waited there as if uncertain and unsure what to do.

She stood between them and her now injured family, fingers tensed as she readied herself for a fight. Her punches were back, and they hurt – the terrible grey-skinned unnatural things could attest to that with their broken corpses. They hadn’t been particularly smart enemies, though they had managed to get the drop on her a few times. _Her back had been bruised from being slammed into the wall._ Her new foes were undoubtedly more intelligent. The fact they wore beautiful armour attest to it. It wasn’t ill-fitting, nor stolen from what she could tell. _Which meant she would get more injuries in a fight. She might die._ The thought made her shiver. She had died far too recently, and she didn’t want to die again so soon. Not without the rest of her family. She didn’t want to be alone, waiting for them. The thought filled her tiny body with dread and terror.

A sharp voice sliced through the eerie stillness – only broken by her low growl – and the group of bearded folk before her stopped in whatever they were doing. Aware of Kakashi on the ground behind her, Sakura didn’t move, snarling wordlessly at them all the while. _They had dared to harm Kakashi._ She wouldn’t let them off. Nobody harmed family. _If that arrow had been aimed somewhere different, like Kakashi’s chest… or another vital spot._ Sakura growled, panic consuming her at the thought of Kakashi vanishing. _Especially before they had all found one another again._ They had to find each other. They had to be together. Their very souls were intertwined as proof, and there was something about their latest incarnation which had Sakura on edge when it came to preserving the lives of her brothers.

Her eyes narrowed as the owner of the sharp, commanding voice appeared – beard a fluffy white, telling of his old age. Eyes the colour of stone locked with her silvery one, and he spoke again, sharply, as he addressed the folk before her – eyes leaving her own in order to stare somewhat scathingly at the gathering before Sakura.

Tilting her head, she inched backwards, risking taking her eyes off the perceived enemy in favour of checking on her brother for a couple of moments. He was conscious still, obviously, but was undoubtedly having trouble moving what with an arrow buried in the flesh of his leg. Sakura hissed in annoyance. _She hadn’t managed to practice medical jutsu. She didn’t know if it would even work, what with the strange new world and its subsequent rules._ Not to mention the arrow was barbed, and it hadn’t pierced through his flesh. Instead, it was embedded within. _Meaning it would undoubtedly cause more damage when it came out._

A voice – that of white-beard, as she was dubbing him – pulled her attention back to the threats, and Sakura bared her teeth in a growl yet again, eyes wary as she sized all of them up. White-beard spoke again, the words sounding different, but Sakura only stared at him in wary confusion and righteous anger. _Because one of the stocky bearded people had shot Kakashi like damned barbarians._ Of course she was going to be wary and angry with the _scary-unfriendly-uncertain_ people who were sharing the caves with them. White-beard continued to speak. Sakura continued to understand none of it. But his tone of voice was no longer coming across as threatening. In fact, he was crouching down then, growing closer to her level – no doubt having spied the way she had flinched and tensed when he had attempted to walk closer at his full height.

Sakura continued to hiss, a growl rumbling in her throat as white-beard shuffled closer. She didn’t like him. She didn’t like any of them. Though she didn’t get the same vibes from them as the grey-skinned horrible creatures. White-beard gestured to Kakashi then, and Sakura could only cock her head and blink owlishly as she attempted to understand what white-beard was trying to communicate. _He kept gesturing to her brother and pointing to his own leg._ Sakura tilted her head. _Was he trying to tell her something about her brother’s injury?_

White-beard crept closer then yet again, and Sakura risked a glance at the group gathered behind him, silvery eyes soon picking out the bearded person who had shot Kakashi. She glowered at him, a snarl bursting from her lips as she scrambled for an idea of what to do. Kakashi had been shot, Naruto was lingering in the back somewhere, nervousness radiating from him like a blanket, and Sakura was frantically trying to think of what she was supposed to do about the stout bearded people. None other than white-beard were doing anything – other than standing and staring in blatant confusion and interest. _But Sakura couldn’t figure out what white-beard wanted._ She glanced at the scant metre left between her and white-beard, body tense as she edged back then, exposing Kakashi as she moved the other side of him. _Then she was in the perfect position to pounce and knock him back away from Kakashi if he tried anything funny._

For all she knew, they could be like the horrible snake man, Orochimaru. _The current three of them were different to the stocky people._ Somehow Sakura could tell that much, and it unnerved her. _How, exactly, they were different she couldn’t pinpoint. She was relying solely on instincts and the impressions she received then._ Silvery eyes remained locked on white-beard, part of her attention flickering to the group behind – to confirm they weren’t about to carry out some sort of nefarious plan and run off to do things with Kakashi’s _new-strange-family_ body.

A startled yelp left her lips when Kakashi was lifted by white-beard, and dimly she wondered why Kakashi wasn’t putting up as much of a fight as he should if lifted by a stranger with unknown intentions. _Or perhaps Kakashi had better interpreted the gist of the attempt at conversation than she had managed?_ Cautious, Sakura trailed behind white-beard, a low growl rumbling form her throat almost instinctively at the _foreign-strange-unknown_ bearded person taking her brother away. Family stuck together though, and dutifully, Sakura followed. She could hear Naruto dogging her footsteps, even as she branched out onto the wall, uncaring as to all the stares and glances directed her way as a result.

_Maybe they just wanted to help?_ Sakura mulled over the idea. _Maybe they didn’t mean to shoot at them? But then why had they in the first place?_ It wasn’t like they could be mistaken for those terrible grey-skinned things which made Sakura want to break out in hives. Sakura looked at her hands where they were fixed to the wall with chakra, jumping back as she spotted the tiny creature with grey skin and matted hair. Snarling, she readied to attack, freezing as she heard a bark of laughter come from one of the stocky bearded people. Confused, she glanced between the small creature opposite her and the group of _strange-possible-hostiles-unclear-motives_ people, eyes widening when the creature did the exact same as her. _Wait a minute—_

Her eyes widened, and gingerly, Sakura plodded back towards the wall, tilting her head, watching as the tiny grey-skinned creature tilted their head too. Fingers poked at the wall, and she came to the abrupt realisation that the wall was in fact a mirrored surface. Silvery eyes flickered down to the skin of her hands, finally able to see the extent of their grey pallor. _How long had it been since she had seen a proper, clear reflection of herself?_ She was covered in muck and grime, dusted with powdered stone. Her hair was in a terrible state, matted, blackened blood having dried in, clumping the dirty locks together. Though Sakura supposed it was preferable for it to be in a terrible state, given the alternative was a head full of shimmering golden locks which were as good at telling the enemy _I’m over here come kill me_ as her old pink locks had been.

Huffing at the sound of unmistakable laughter coming from behind her, she ventured onwards, bounding forward on all fours as she followed white-beard, slightly less suspiciously than before. _Because really, Sakura hadn’t even recognised herself as a non-threat in the mirror, so maybe that was an explanation for the arrow fired at them?_ Of course, that wasn’t guaranteed. For all she knew the stocky people could have been allied with the grey-skinned things, so, guard up, she followed them through unfamiliar halls and chambers. Growl rumbling still in her throat, she tensed as they approached yet more of the stocky bearded people. Kakashi was set on what looked to be a bed. _She felt as though she hadn’t seen one for years, what with how comfortable she had grown with sleeping on the cold, hard, stone floors or the lightly cushioned moss which had grown in the corner of her once safe home there in those strange caves and tunnels._

White-beard turned to her and Naruto who had, belatedly, followed them, seemingly trying to usher them away from where Kakashi lay – being converged on by a very serious-looking bearded person whose eyes were fixed on the arrow, and who was muttering something in that foreign language of theirs. Never before had Sakura wished she had the ability to understand. It was something she had never really thought on before, because the Elemental Nations only had one tongue, but their own tongues couldn’t speak it there – it being barred from falling from their lips for reasons unknown. It frustrated Sakura to no end. _How were they supposed to trust people they couldn’t understand? How were they supposed to talk to each other when they couldn’t speak any sort of language?_ Tears bit at the corners of her eyes, worry and concern over leaving Kakashi alone with the strange people who had shot at them.

A hand moved then, catching her attention even as she looked between white-beard and the place where they had left Kakashi, albeit somewhat unwillingly. _Trust didn’t come easy. Well, not to her, nor Kakashi… probably not Sasuke either._ Naruto always tried to see the best in others though… so maybe he was being so compliant because of that. _Or maybe he could just understand the strange, bearded people around them so much better than herself?_

Their seeming guide gestured in front of them then, having led them someplace new. But Sakura stopped dead in the middle of the hallway, growl ceasing as she spied the black-haired figure. His skin was clean of dirt and muck, eyes a bright grey which glowed much like hers and Naruto’s own. Silky, almost inky black locks fell dead straight, flowing past his shoulders and to his waist. Sasuke, on the whole, much like Kakashi, hadn’t really seemed to change colouring-wise. But Sakura didn’t care about that. It was Sasuke standing in front of them, fully clothed much to her own jealousy – _how had he found clothes to fit him?_

They had found their missing member through a lucky turn of fate. _Sakura couldn’t help suspect a spirit’s hand in the bucket breaking – because that had led them there, to a place they likely wouldn’t have ventured if not for that curious turn of fate._

They were whole once more.


	7. two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the road less travelled by

Upon reflection, the situation placed before him was completely and utterly mind bending. Truly, Balin couldn’t comprehend why or even how they had found the odd creatures – _children_ , he later realised, and the were undoubtedly _not_ dwarven children, and indeed, though he had never seen an orc child, they were most definitely not belonging to that terrible race. He had never seen children like that before, with eyes so bright they almost shone and hair so long that it either reached their waifish waists, or down to their ankles, as was the case with the wildest one. _The same one which had orc blood in their hair._ That, in Balin’s mind, had cemented the idea of these strange children being fellow enemies of the few remaining orcs who still inhabited the mines of Khazad-dûm. There was a scant few number left who had survived there through means unknown. Not many of them, but they were a nuisance none the less. The fact that at least one of the strange children had clashed with those foul creatures… There was no reason to harm them, nor possibly turn them into enemies – not with their colony still in its infancy. They had barely been there for four years, and the Seventh Level wasn’t anywhere near restored to its former glory.

Despite those conclusions, Balin had no idea in the first place _how_ the children had ended up within those walls. They were still very small, likely belonging to a mannish race… or perhaps… Balin shook his head at the idea. Indeed, there had been no children in Rivendell when he and the rest of the Thorin’s company had visited. _Well, aside from that mannish boy who had chanced upon them._ Even then, the boy had been far larger in stature than their _guests?_ He had never seen an elven child. There was a rumour that there simply weren’t any. Which meant that was unlikely to be an option, if it even was one in the first place. Balin wasn’t quite sure what to call them, mannish guests or perhaps halflings – hobbits, as Bilbo had once informed him they preferred to be called. Indeed, he had no idea how they had even come to be there, given they were so… different in stature and nature to their folk.

They had happened across the first child some weeks ago when scouting out the nearest garden. Grey eyes, glistening like freshly carved marble, had stared at them, confusion and fear in their depths as the boy nibbled on one of the many fruits which had survived through the years despite the lack of proper care. Managing to earn the boy’s trust had taken over half of the time between then and the present, wild and feral as the boy was. Communication had, obviously, been an issue, given the boy spoke neither the common tongue of the mannish folk, nor Sindarin. As he and the rest of their colony had learnt, the boy couldn’t speak. Not out of inability, but more of the fact he _hadn’t_ learnt to speak. Ori had then been unofficially appointed to the task of teaching the boy to speak, to little success as of yet. But there was a modicum of trust there, _thank Mahal_ – one which hadn’t been present before.

He was a skittish thing but given he had seemingly raised himself up in Khazad-dûm, it was only to be expected, or so he understood. Children required parents, ones to raise them up and take care of them. _To protect them._ The children there didn’t seem to have anyone of the sort. Truly, it had been surprising – and given how he had lived a good two-hundred and thirty years, that said something as to how unusual and uncertain of a situation they had found themselves in – to finding a lost, seemingly abandoned child within halls haunted by tragedies long past. They had searched for any signs of his parents, living or dead, but there was none. It was though the boy had appeared out of thin air.

Now there were four little mysteries found by their colony. Balin chewed on his lip, caught deep in thought as he sat upon his throne in the Twenty-first Hall within the Chamber of Mazarbul. He was Lord of Moria, and as such their four newly found guests and the matter of what to do with them fell under his purview.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, he thought back on the uproar which had overcome Frár and Lóni’s group upon their return from their expedition to the furthest reaches of the Seventh Level. There had been a great noise, followed by a rising clamour, and Balin was glad to have ventured out to inspect the situation when he had. Otherwise those strange children would have been mistaken for goblin children and suffered their fate before they could have realised that they were identical in looks and stature to their current, relatively harmless guest. Unlike the child they found previous, these three were covered in a thick layer of grime, their skin looking grey due to their apparent lack of baths. Frár had reacted far too swiftly, thinking them a threat, and had shot one of them with an arrow. _Which had undoubtedly made the situation far worse, going by the child with the longest hair’s reaction._ None of them understood a lick of common or any elvish tongue, which had meant communicating through basic gestures in order to get the little injured one back to Náli for treatment. Balin didn’t want to think of what would’ve happened if they hadn’t managed to persuade them.

The children, the one they found previous and the new three, knew each other, which brought up yet another mystery for them to try and solve. Not that they were having any luck with that, or so Balin mused to himself. Truly, he was at loss of what to do. At least until they figured out how to teach them common, or perhaps Sindarin. Maybe then they would finally get some answers as to what was going on – what strange forces were at work to leave a group of four children within the mines of Moria. _They were in no state for children to inhabit._ It was why Balin and his group were there in the first place – to recolonise their old kingdom and bring back its former glory, despite Dáin’s counsel otherwise.

“What’ll we do with them, Balin?” Óin asked, one of the few who didn’t add a _Lord_ before his name thanks to their long acquaintance. _It was rather hard to ignore the bonds forged through attempted dragon slaying._ Not to mention there wasn’t much of an opportunity to entertain formalities or even hold court what with their current residence being a far cry from its original splendour. Balin sighed softly at his companion’s words – that being the heart of the matter. What were they to do with the children? They could hardly turn them out, not with them perhaps dwelling in there before their colony had arrived. But they were still building and repairing the passages most often used, and the residential quarters weren’t quite done. It wasn’t _safe_ for children, though Balin supposed if they had survived for years on their own in the halls of Moria, then it should speak volumes of their ability to survive if nothing else. They were likely quite resourceful and intelligent, even if they couldn’t as of yet speak a single word. “They’re children – they can’t stay here.”

“How are we to get them out or even explain matters to them if they don’t understand?” Balin asked – because that was the real issue there. Any trust they might try to build with the three newest arrivals in their camp might have been rather shaky due to Frár’s arrow.

“So we teach them,” Óin mumbled, eyes narrowed as they looked upon the four children as they milled about the area, each of them looking terribly restless all of a sudden. “If they can’t understan’ then we teach them.”

“Ori—”

A cry rent the air, and then there was a scuffle of movement _on the walls_ – Balin doubted he would ever forget the sight of that – as two figures hurried out of the chamber and to _Mahal knew where._ Bushy brows knotted both in concern and confusion at the sight. The wild long-haired one and their original guest had vanished, leaving them with the injured one and the other seemingly glued to his side. _Who was currently stark raving naked._

Balin sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose once more as he felt the oncoming headache coming to nip at his temples then. “Maker’s mercy…” he muttered, shaking his head yet again at the situation set before him.

* * *

Life had… really started to take some interesting turns after he had crossed paths with the strange other inhabitants of the caves. Sasuke had been struck by the sudden urgent feeling that he needed to wait, and he had. He had waited in that nice garden. Only to meet with those stocky people who were perhaps double his height and three times as wide. _He looked so terribly skinny and stick-like compared to those strangers._ Dimly, he wondered if he would grow up to look like that – whether there was an odd new growth which would consist of him growing outwards rather than upwards as he grew from the tiny little stick which he was at that current moment in time.

But they all looked so different to him, and his siblings – his family – which he had since found after being taken into the care of those strange people there. Truthfully, they were terribly nice, and they let him get on with his craftwork. Sasuke had no complaints about them. In fact, after one of them – whom he believed to be called _Flói_ – had shown him a loom and how to use such a thing he had been quite content with staying around the strange people for so many sleep cycles. By the time Sakura, Kakashi, and Naruto made an appearance, he was rather content there, even if he still could barely understand a single word any of them said. _Though he had gotten names down, what with those being some of the easiest things to get across despite the language barrier._

He hadn’t given his own name there, not that he could voice those syllables which were too foreign to even make it off his tongue. There was no name for him there. He wasn’t Sasuke, nor was he Uchiha. It was funny, perhaps, how before his death the entire situation before him would have been unthinkable. _How could he be Uchiha Sasuke without having a claim to that name?_ But that name belonged to his past. He had been Uchiha Sasuke. Now he was… something else. Somebody else. There was no other reason they would have seemingly been banned from using the tongue of the Elemental Nations there – because that was what was undoubtedly going on there. The ban on that language meant they couldn’t speak their old names. They no longer existed.

Sasuke didn’t quite know what to feel about that. He had been an Uchiha for as long as he could remember, and now he was missing the _sharingan,_ ergo he couldn’t be an Uchiha. People, particularly clan elders, had spoken about those who didn’t awaken their sharingan as though they were servants. People lower than themselves. _People who didn’t deserve to bear the Uchiha name_. Of course, being a sharingan bearer made them focus on the person in question. Or so he had grown up learning. It had been too late by the time he awoke his own sharingan.

They had all been dead. He had seen their corpses that night, and part of him finally registered how terrible that was. _How it had affected a little eight-year-old boy and driven him to…_

A bark of choked laughter escaped him then. It was rather amusing how objectively he could think now that he wasn’t so obsessed about his clan and his brother. Like there was a wall of glass between him and his memories. He could see them, but it was as though he were watching them from behind a television. None of the heavy emotions were there to drag him down into the maelstrom of hate, love, anger, and pride which used to boil beneath his feet. It couldn’t cross that boundary. All there was left for him in that strange new world they had been flung into was… _them_. Well, his eternal family and his new appreciation for craft. Especially that of the clothing variety. It was surprising how waking up naked in a foreign land could affect someone’s future passions. Sasuke could confirm that much.

Dimly, it had made him wonder for his family’s new interests, _and whether they had woken up naked too._ A smile curved at his lips, an amused huff leaving him at the thought of his favourite idiot panicking over clothes, or a subsequent lack of them.

Later, upon seeing Naruto completely nude, he regretted those thoughts immensely. _How could Naruto waltz around the caves like that? Did he have no shame?_ Sasuke mused, before deciding that was probably the correct answer. He and Kakashi were snuggled up together, Kakashi’s leg bandaged from whatever treatment done to it, the pair of them looking alarmingly close, but Sasuke supposed that was to be expected. They had clearly all found each other sooner than they had found him. Before their death and subsequent reincarnation, perhaps that would have bothered him.

As it stood he… wasn’t. Instead, he went over to see Sakura, grabbing at her hand to get her attention. It was a touch he was used to – what with the stocky people often guiding him about or showing him how to work the equipment used there – _it was all so shiny and new to him._ Though, the fact of the matter was that he hadn’t been expecting Sakura to startle, hiss, and leap up onto the wall like a frightened cat.

Silvery eyes met his for perhaps a fraction of a second, her chest moving too fast, entire body shaking as her eyes darted about wildly, and then she was off. Sasuke chased. He wasn’t entirely sure what possessed him to follow his sister into the unknown, but he did so. _Wanting to know where she was going. Wanting to know she was safe._ The same blasted instincts he was fairly sure they all had – because they were a family and they were meant to be together. _Forever._ So he had to know where Sakura was running off to.

The answer soon came in the form of a garden, set upon the highest level, starlight twinkling through gaps in the roof above. _Could he call it a roof?_ Sasuke mused on the thought, glad he had memorised the route up there as he watched his sibling curl up into a ball atop a bed of moss. She was panicking over something. Of what, Sasuke couldn’t quite figure out. He had just touched her. It wasn’t something to react over like that, _was it?_

Dully, he mused on the aftermath of the massacre, not too certain of anything or anyone anymore. He wanted for everything to just _stop_ and give them time to adjust. But time was a terribly cruel mistress and she ticked on constantly without fail.

And she wouldn’t leave them behind.


	8. our family is a circle of strength

Being shot, Kakashi could confirm, was by no means a pleasant experience. Especially when one was in a place which didn’t seem to use chakra to speed along the healing process. Though Kakashi supposed that was what he got for his overconfidence. _What he got for not running away when the bucket had given out and fallen through no fault of his own._ Groaning, he shuffled about on his bed, hating the restlessness he felt – what with two of their company missing. There was an itch in the back of his mind which he couldn’t scratch, not least because he was unable to really move as he wished. He wasn’t made for lazing about, though Naruto seemed to be content to do just that. Happily though, he was now wearing clothing whilst doing just that. It eased his worries somewhat, what with them being around others finally. But it only eased them somewhat, what with how Sakura and Sasuke had vanished off quite literally into thin air. _Or so it seemed to Kakashi as he lay on the bed, injured leg slightly_ elevated.

It was so very hard to be without communication between the four of them beyond gestures. _Really, it only made Kakashi wish he had taught them ANBU hand signs, basic and unconversational as they were._ His shoulders sunk, a huff of air escaping him as he lay there, hating the fact his movement would be impaired. Plus there was the added fact that too much bed rest would impact his muscles. And so Kakashi fervently prayed for his wound to close that much quicker, not that he felt it did much. The strange stocky people didn’t help either – what with them not allowing him to exercise even upon his hands. _As he took a leaf out of the book which was Maito Gai._ An odd sort of nostalgia pounded in his chest at the thought, and Kakashi could only smile sombrely at the thought of everything left behind. It was odd, given he didn’t do that particularly much, but being trapped in a bed had him going just the smidgest bit stir crazy.

He wanted to move – to bounce off the ceiling if he had to just to get some form of movement. Naruto, as much as he loved his precious little brother, wasn’t particularly helpful, what with him imitating a limpet at pretty much all hours of the day. He looked particularly comfortable doing so, which wasn’t all that great when all Kakashi wished to do was the complete and utter opposite. He had never particularly liked being caged or trapped in any sort of way. _The Hatake Spirit,_ or so his father had once called it.

Kakashi sighed softly, musing over his new situation, which only became more interesting as one of the stocky people came over – and rather abruptly started trying, or so Kakashi believed, to teach them to speak their language.

Needless to say he and Naruto didn’t particularly take to it well. _How could they, when they didn’t have the slightest clue about how to learn a language from scratch?_ But he didn’t want to remain only able to communicate in grunts and gestures, so buckling down and trying to figure things out it was. _It was like being at the academy all over again – except this time he wasn’t a child genius with everything already figured out._

Kakashi hated it.

* * *

Naruto started humming three days into his allotted bedrest, something in his bones telling him to do something _anything_ to fill up the emptiness of the room they were in. It wasn’t a place where they could see the sky, and all he could do was marvel at his silvery locks and hum to a tune which filled his ears whenever he dreamt. _And dream he did – of the sea, of the shore, of sailing upon those_ waves.

He couldn’t quite describe his longing in that regards. There was something which had captivated him so about those waves. He had been told of the waters of Uzushio once, and he hadn’t felt a damned thing – even when his missions had taken him close to the shores of those waters. There, in that strange new world they had yet to explore, Naruto knew there was only one thing which would call to him so. And that was the waters. _A great sea upon which he wanted to sail_ upon.

Wondering why he could taste the salt on an imaginary breeze, Naruto snuggled into the uninjured side of his brother, briefly curious as to the location of Sasuke and Sakura before he recalled Sakura’s home she’d made for herself there in the garden some levels above where the pair of them rested. It was terribly warm, enough for the heat to seep into his bones, and Naruto finally registered how very cold it had been in the rest of the cave system. He didn’t think he wanted to go back to that coldness. Chakra, once he had learnt to manipulate it once more, only had so much of an effect.

He wondered why Sakura had vanished back into that coldness and emptiness. _They would come back though. Of that, Naruto was certain._ They were a family, and as such they had to stick together. Much like how he was literally plastering himself to the side of his injured brother and attempting to sing away the troubles their transmigration had caused.

The universe was never kind to them, nor did it make things simple.

* * *

Sakura curled up in her cave, running her fingers over the skin which Sasuke had touched. It felt strange. Sakura didn’t like it. She wasn’t used to touch after so long of living there by herself. It felt foreign, Sakura acknowledged, hiding her head in her knees as she curled into a little ball. Silvery eyes peered out of the safe place she had made, boring into the figure sitting on the other side of her home.

Sasuke looked at her, confusion plastered over his face as he sat there. He wanted to come closer – that much was obvious whenever he shuffled forwards, only to stop when she tensed. Loneliness wasn’t something she craved, she doubted anyone would, because they were social creatures and bad things tended to happen when isolated without another’s company for months or even years on end. Fortunately for her, it hadn’t been years, but the months spent alone, thriving in the caves by herself, had changed her.

Sakura didn’t know what she felt about that. _All she knew was that she didn’t particularly like touch anymore, and she was oddly comfortable on all fours._ Her old self would probably have screamed at that. She didn’t overly care about what her past self would think, mainly because it was just that. _Past._ And Sakura was very much living in the present.

That was how one survived, especially when cast into an eery but familiar situation. The truly logical part of her brain whispered of how it was so very strange to go along with those gut feelings of hers. Sakura digressed, and chose to focus on the situation before her and how to survive it all – because there was still that presence in those mines. The one she could just about sense, buried deep down below. The one she had woken far too close to, and it terrified her so. It made her skin crawl, and her blood turn to ice whenever she thought of that demonic presence there which burnt with fire and hatred. And maybe, just maybe, that presence had contributed to her mental state somewhat – it had made her long for the highest floors of the cave system, if only so she was as far away from that thing as one could be.

She couldn’t put that in words, could tell the others of how big of a danger she knew it to be, for she had stood almost right before it where its power was undeniable, which in some ways made things worse. She didn’t know if the others had cottoned on to that ancient _evil_ presence below. Ideally, she would have thought they would have sensed it, but then again, she might have been more sensitive to that being due to the fact she, unlike the others, had woken right beside it. She hadn’t been able to spy or feel any of the others nearby when she had woken there, so it was only right to assume they had all woken far, far away from that terrible fiery chakra which wanted nothing more than to burn all which stood in its way.

Sakura wouldn’t let it burn her family. Never. Her eyes narrowed, decision made and freak out over Sasuke’s touch finished, she bounded to the door, startling Sasuke as she did so.

It was time to return to her family.

* * *

Relief was mainly what Sasuke felt as he and Sakura ventured back down towards the other two members of their ragtag, constantly reincarnating family. He somewhat liked the odd people who had helped him over the previous weeks, and who had tried at the very least to teach him things. There was an odd sort of curiosity to him, an insatiable desire to learn. He was hardly going to deny himself so. Not when such information could prove beneficial to their survival there.

They were family, and family stuck together, no matter his actions in the only lifetime he could remember.

He hadn’t truly understood what they had meant to him back then.

**Author's Note:**

> SPORADIC UPDATES T_T


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